Darrell Hawkins was born in Chatham, Kent, UK, in 1986. He attended the Kent Institute of Art and Design and graduated from Brighton University of Art. The artist lives and works in Gravesend and Chatham Kent.

22/06/2018

On my recent series of paintings 'Technofossils' for Rochester Art Gallery...

In these new series of paintings, I wanted to explore the allure of contemporary ruins through the Kent landscape. Monoliths and monuments – overlooked or forgotten structures that litter Kent act as signifiers to the county’s past and shape its current identity.

“Technofossils can range from infrastructure such as highways, cities and airports down to mobile phones, ballpoint pens and toothbrushes -- everything humans build or manufacture -- and will become humanity's equivalent of the dinosaur's footprint”- Tech Times referring to ‘The Technofossil Record of Humans’ by researchers at the University of Leicester – published in The Anthopocene Review.

My painting ‘Technofossil Mountain’ presents this accumulating detritus as a mountain range- we are literally cutting, sculpting and transforming the landscapes around us. Everything we are producing will have an effect and leave a trace, one day becoming layer upon layer of technofossil.
A Cold War submarine, coastal ‘Sound Mirrors’, hovercrafts, and towers blocks all appear in the work. I see these subjects as records of past ambitions and faded ideals, clues to Kent’s previous societal structures in peacetime and in conflict.

My fascination has always been piqued by these poetically jarring, alien structures in rural and suburban settings. They are a reminder of the transitory nature, and sometimes failures, of life as well as humankind’s advances in technology, science, and social organisation.